Even before the Narendra Modi team has uttered a word about its national plan if it forms the Union Government in 2014, chronic anti-BJP interests, including some from the media, are using every chance to sound alarm bells about the ‘Hindutva agenda’ of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya, abrogation of Article 370 and introduction of a Uniform Civil Code. Some bright ones add the ban on cow slaughter as well.

That this agenda constitutes an anti-national phenomenon is nonsense, as we shall see, but what is laughable is what set off the alarm.

It began with Modi’s interview to Reuters in which he agreed with the interviewer that he was a Hindu nationalist by virtue of the fact that he was a Hindu and a nationalist, and therefore a Hindu nationalist.

In screaming at this view, journalists forgot that during the 2008 nuclear debate in the Lok Sabha, Omar Abdullah had begun his speech by saying, “I am a Muslim and I am an Indian. I see no difference between the two.”(Outlook magazine, of July 22, 2008‎) Abdullah had been lauded for that comment but Modi is to be lambasted now for an identical remark. Does religion make a difference for the fanatical BJP-haters?

Mediamen also seized that Reuters interview for Modi’s comment that he did of course feel hurt bythe Godhra riots, just as a man in a car would be hurt even if a pulpy came under his car’s wheels. “See, how he comparers Muslims to puppies”, they say. Bizarre radiologists and linguists they who can read the mind and read a puppy for a Muslim and Muslims for puppies.

Another spark lit for the Modi and Hindu-haters is Amit Shah’s, Modi’s lieutenant, visit to Ayodhya soon after being deputed to handle the BJP campaign in Uttar Pradesh. “Why did he have to visit Ayodhya? What was his sinister motive?” That questioning was as pitiable and naïve as someone asking why the most ardent wish of a Muslim visiting Mumbai is to pay homage in the Haji Ali dargah. Further, Shah did not promise a Ram Temple on that visit of his. The TV footage will show that all he did was to pray that the grand temple would be built at the site. What is abominable about praying for a wish to come true?

The trouble is that journalists are known to find little time to read beyond what their fraternity writes and speaks on TV. Hence they are unaware that the demand for a Ram Temple has essentially been a demand to remove what is today a 423-year-old encroachment on someone else’s property. The encroachment was disclosed by a court verdict of 1886.

It was a civil appeal (number 27 of 1885) by one Mahant Raghubardas and the defendant respondents were the Secretary of State for India and one Mohammed Azghar. In his judgenment delivered on March 18, 1886, the District Judge, Colonel Chamier recorded as follows: “I visited the land in this dispute yesterday in the presence of all parties. I found that the masjid built by Emperor Babar stands on the border of the town of Ayodhya, that is to say, to the west and south. It is clear of habitations. It is most unfortunate that a masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by the Hindus, but as that event occurred 356 years ago, it is too late now to remedy the grievance. All that can be done is to maintain the parties in status quo. In such a case, as the present one, any innovation could cause more harm and derangement of order than benefit.”

Unbelievably, that finding of 1886 by a British judge was confirmed by a three-judge bench of the Lucknow High Court on September 30, 2010, but it decided that the site concerned be shared by the contesting parties. In short, the elephant has gone and only the tail remains. The Ram Temple at Ayodhya is now a certainty but the judicial process now remains in the Supreme Court. Hence, the Ram Temple issue will now be left to the Apex Court or to negotiations over the table. The BJP, under Modi or anyone else, is not foolhardy to resolve it over pitched battles. The BJP-haters should understand that.

About Article 370, the BJP has long understood that it is neither an issue to be fought in the courts or on the streets. That Article can be abandoned only with the permission of the J&K Government in power and that permission itself is ruled out as long as the Kashmir Valley holds sway over the J&K. But there’s every reason to raise it in the public domain for people in the rest of our country to understand that it is the continuance of that Article which has prevented that State from being truly and emotionally integrated with the rest of India. It is that continuance which has made the State’s economic existence, by its own confession, entirely dependent on doles from the Union Government whose revenues comes entirely from the taxes paid by millions of non-J&K parts of the nation. Article 370 therefore remains a “national” issue, not a Hindu one.

It would therefore be in the national interest if the BJP under Modi exhorts the nation to secure such modifications in the J&K State Constitution as will enable Article 370 to bring the J&K State and the rest of the nation a giant step closer to each other. For instance, the provisions of Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation should be made applicable to J&K State. Also, all the privileges — which include contesting and voting for the State Assembly and eligibility to Government scholarships — which are presently given only to the category called ‘Permanent Residents’ in J&K should be accorded to all Indian citizens living in that State. And why should the life term of the J&K State Assembly be of six years while it is five years in the rest of India?

Similarly, the introduction of a Uniform Civil Code for the entire country is not an item of inclusion exclusively in any Hindu agenda. It is something which all nation-loving Indians must try to bring about insofar as it brings equitable treatment to all women in all our communities. The Supreme Court of India has, at least three times in the past, harped on the dire need for the nation to have such a uniformity in civil laws. Go to Google and you’ll get the details, including that of a Justice Kuldip Singh who, in just one judgement, mentioned the need for it as many as 20 times.

Lastly, there’s that topic of a ban on cow slaughter which is resented by many non-Hindus. For ‘foodies’, the subject is a no-no and no Hindu from the BJP or any other political party can quarrel with that. But for those who think much beyond the dining table, the following two excerpts from a comprehensive speech made by Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava on November 24, 1948 in the Constituent Assembly debates (which, remember, framed our nation’s Constitution) should give food for thought:

“…in China, cow-slaughter is a crime. It is banned in Afghanistan as well. A year ago, a similar law was passed in Burma…

“Even during the Muslim rule, Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and even in the reign of Aurangzeb, cow slaughter was not practised in India; not because Muslims regarded it to be bad but because, from the economic point of view, it was unprofitable.”

Yes, the belittling and battering of the so-called ‘Hindutva’ agenda is simply a lot of nonsense.